Sunday, March 30, 2008

Web 2.0

Gmail - my primary non-work email. I also keep quick notes as drafts and backup smaller files by emailing them to myself.

Google Reader - I check Reader more often than Gmail. I follow about 20 low-traffic blogs and other RSS/Atom sources in near real-time and about 100 other feeds that I scan onces or twice a day. It's been a great timesaver compared to just bouncing around my top 50 bookmarks randomly. I also "star" things to read later if I'm short on time and share things that I used to email people. (You can see my shared feed over here somewhere on the right side of the page ---> )

Facebook - I follow a feed of my friend's activities. Normally that wouldn't be too many but a ton of adults from our church are on Facebook. Tipping Point. Otherwise it's a few scattered people I used to know (include Rob, who I went to high school with and hadn't seen or talked to in 20+ years). I otherwise pretty much ignore it. I don't do most of the apps and I don't do a lot of Twitter-like microblogging. I did develop a small sample app but the Facebook servers are so touchy that the timeouts were making me nuts. I might still get back to building an app.

Google Calendar - We have a Google calendar for each family member so I can see at a glance who's got what. Plus I get fed a few other calendars like the NFL schedule. I don't sync it with anything though. I do use SMS to interact with it.

Google Docs - I mostly use this to share docs with my wife. I also keep some docs I use for children's ministry. Otherwise all my docs are on a PC or in email.

Blogger - I like it a lot better than tweaking Wordpress and having to keep up with their patch cycle. Especially since we're on GoDaddy for hosting now and they're a pretty weak host for Wordpress. I can do 90% of what I want on Blogger with little effort and it keeps getting better.

Flickr - I upload almost every single photo I take to my Flickr Pro account. I'd much rather use Picasa Web (Google Photos) but the same amount of storage would cost me a fortune. I do use Picasa Web for some photos though. I really need to shuffle things so my Flickr Pro is just for backups and use Picasa Web and a free Flickr account for sharing.

Netflix - We juggle 3 DVDs at a time and 4 queues, one for each family member. Plus the kids can usually watch something they want with streaming.

LinkedIn - It's exploding with people. In the last month I've seen more people I know join than I used to see in six months. It's the first place I go to look for people I know in any technology field.

LibraryElf - Monitors our local library account of every family member so I automatically know when books are coming due or holds are available. I get updates by RSS, SMS and email.

Twitter - Still not quite sure how I will use Twitter. I originally used it to collect some other RSS sources, like my blog posts, but FriendFeed is better for that. I also used to mirror tweets to my Facebook status but I stopped that. Now I just post things that aren't worth a whole blog entry.

FriendFeed - I'm starting to use this as a macro view into all my different RSS feeds that I feel like sharing.

Mint - Tracks our spending. It's still rough around the edges, but it's got a lot of potential.

About Me

Hi. My name is Jon Adair and I'm a geek. This is my oft-neglected personal blog.

I'm the co-founder of Thinkamingo where we build fun and educational mobile apps. I do product planning, coding, graphic design, and marketing. I'm married with two homeschooled kids, so there's very little "free time" outside of their activities. I've been active in several ministries at Van Dyke United Methodist Church especially children's ministry. I am also a ham (AI4DG) and do disaster relief and community service volunteer work through several organizations.